As if the Joey Barton transfer hadn't poured enough fuel onto the fire of Monday's fixture the Premier League has now appointed its most card-happy referee to officiate the game.
Referee >>> Phil Dowd (Staffordshire), card happy referee with 24 yellows handed out in just four games already this season. Refereed Newcastle 's 4-4 draw with Arsenal last season, awarding the Magpies two penalties.
Assistants >>> Simon Long (Suffolk) and Richard West (East Yorkshire)
Fourth Official >>> Andy D'Urso (Essex), experienced league official, dropped from the Premiership list several years ago, with a long and chequered history with QPR.
Man Utd 1 QPR 0, Tuesday November 11, 2008
Two minutes of injury time were advertised, but Dowd played three to give United a chance to have one last go from a corner – Stewart cleared the ball and the whistle sounded immediately. Rangers had been under the cosh, and were yet to have a shot on goal of their own, but they were hanging in there. If there was a criticism of them in the first half it was that twice they had been given a chance to put a couple of free kicks into the box from 40 or 50 yards out and twice the delivery had been very poor. Set pieces were always going to be our best chance of nicking a goal and the way we wasted the ones we got was disappointing.
United were clearly starting to get frustrated but two minutes after the Blackstock chance they introduced young striker Danny Wellbeck at the expense of Rodrigo Possebon and it gave them a crucial added cutting edge. Four minutes after coming on Wellbeck ran in behind the QPR defence, turned Ramage on the byline and then hit the deck as the ball ran back to Cerny. He would not have scored, he had toed the ball too far in front of him and Cerny had collected, but for the first time in the game a QPR player had lost his composure and gone to ground on an opponent. Stretford End, United struggling, player sent sprawling – there was only ever going to be one call. Ramage looked distraught, his best performance for the club so far ruined by a rush of blood to the head.
Tevez embarked on a mazy, bendy, ridiculously over elaborate run up and some half hour later arrived at the ball and sent Cerny the wrong way to give United the lead. Before the kick had even been taken Ainsworth was readying Sam Di Carmine on the bench and sure enough once United had gone into the lead the Italian came on to replace Lee Cook.
Now with three recognised strikers on the pitch QPR actually started to threaten. Almost right from the kick off Blackstock declined to shoot when the ball bounced up invitingly in the penalty area for him and then on the very next attack the R’s got the ball in the net. Again Blackstock struggled to get a shot away with the ball bouncing all over the place, then Mahon hit a half volley into the ground and as the ball bounced up Di Carmine headed home from six yards out. The away end burst into life, but the passion was killed almost immediately as the sight of a linesman’s flag in the air brought a premature end to the celebrations.
QPR: Cerny 9, Ramage 7, Stewart 9, Hall 9, Connolly 7, Mahon 8, Rowlands 8, Buzsaky 5 (Agyemang 7), Parejo 4 (Ledesma 7) Cook 5 (Di Carmine 7) Blackstock 5
Subs Not Used: Cole, Delaney, Gorkss, Ephraim
Man Utd: Kuszczak 6, Rafael Da Silva 7, Neville 7 (Vidic 89, -), Evans 7, O'Shea 7, Gibson 7, Possebon 7 (Welbeck 72, 8), Anderson 7, Nani 7, Tevez 8, Park 8
Subs Not Used: Foster, Carrick, Manucho, Cleverley, Gray
Goals: Tevez 76 pen (assisted Nani)
Referee: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire) 8 No bookings and no real controversy. The QPR disallowed goal was offside, the penalty was a penalty. I thought we were lucky to escape a hand ball shout in the first minute but other than that it was hard to fault the referee.
Norwich 1 QPR 0, Saturday December 30, 2006
Ten minutes later Stewart was caught out by Earnshaw as he tried to shield a ball away for a goal kick and the big Jamaican hauled him to the ground as he tried to recover. The incident took place a matter of inches away from the penalty area and Stewart was unlucky to escape without a card or a spot kick being awarded. Marcus Bignot wasn't so lucky in the next attack when he dragged Huckerby back to prevent the speedy winger racing away from him and he picked up the first yellow of the game from Phil Dowd.
Norwich: Gallacher 7, Colin 7, Shackell 7, Doherty 6, Drury 7,Croft 8 (Hughes 77, 6), Safri 8 (McVeigh 88, -), Etuhu 7, Huckerby 7, Dublin 8,Earnshaw 7
Subs Not Used: Lewis, Fleming, Ryan Jarvis
Goals: Dublin 69
QPR: Royce 7, Bignot 5, Stewart 7, Mancienne 7, Milanese 5,Gallen 5 (Blackstock 77, 5), Rowlands 7 (Ward 41, 5), Lomas 7, Cook 5, Furlong 5, Ray Jones 5
Subs Not Used: Cole, Baidoo, Kanyuka
Booked: Bignot, Cook
Ref: P Dowd (Staffordshire) 5 - Pretty home orientated, allowed Dublin to challenge pretty much however he liked while Furlong was penalised every time he went near the ball. Also gave a number of free kicks to Lee Croft in the first half which quite blatantly came from dives, seemed to get wise to him though after a particularly obvious flop right in front of the away fans.
Prior to that Dowd refereed Rangers' 4-2 home win against Crystal Palace in 2006/07, awarding Rangers a stone wall penalty for a foul by Danny Butterfield on Lee Cook. In 2004/05 he refereed us twice, in a 3-1 home defeat by Sunderland and a 1-0 defeat at Leicester where he disallowed two perfectly good Martin Rowlands goals for reasons known only to him. Dowd also refereed the infamous 2-0 home defeat by Fulham in 2001 when Clarke Carlisle and Richard Langley both ruptured their cruciate ligaments. In 1999/00 he refereed a 2-1 home win against Tranmere and the season before he was in the middle for our 3-2 away defeat against the same opponents.
So far this season Dowd has shown 24 yellows in four matches, a six a game average which I can never recall seeing before from an official I've written up for this column. He was pretty prolific last season as well, showing 139 yellows in 38 matches (3.66 a match) and a hefty 12 reds. That included two matches where he booked nine players and sent another off (Fulham v Wolves, Newcastle v Sunderland) and one where he booked nine (West Brom v Wigan ). He showed six cards or more in a game on nine different occasions and in only two matches did he show no cards at all. Newcastle fans will have fond memories of his last appointment with them – he was the referee for their miraculous 4-4 draw with Arsenal where they trailed 4-0 before pulling level. He booked five, sent off Abou Diaby and awarded Newcastle two penalties that day. In 2009/10 he showed 135 yellows and five reds in 39 matches – 3.46 yellows a game.
Premiership >>> Mark Clattenburg gets his first top flight game of the season as Stoke face Liverpool – since refereeing a disastrous Everton v Liverpool clash in 2007 Clattenburg has never taken charge of Everton again and has only one Liverpool game since. Andre Marriner is also slated for the first time this campaign for Bolton v Man Utd. Stuart Attwell is definitely flavour of the month with another top flight fixture, he has Arsenal v Swansea.
Championship >>> Premiership referee Chris Foy drops down to the Championship for the Saturday evening fixture between Coventry and Derby. Another top flight official Mike Dean has been handed the task of controlling Birmingham v Millwall on Sunday lunchtime.
League One >>> Andy D'Urso will take Orient v Colchester before serving as fourth official at Loftus Road on Monday night. Our old mate Gavin Ward has the Tuesday clash between Brentford and Colchester.
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